Space breeding scope expected to expand, exploring modern agriculture with Chinese characteristics
“Space mutation breeding is one avenue for cultivating many new crop varieties, has played a major role in agricultural production, and has made a certain contribution to solving the country's food security issues. Space breeding is a research direction with our Chinese characteristics, because other countries have not done much research in this area.” Jiang Xingcun, the first person in China's space breeding and a researcher at the Institute of Genetics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in his speech at the China Aerospace Science and Technology Achievements Civilian Application and Aerospace Agriculture Development Summit Forum held a few days ago.
This forum took aerospace science and technology achievements civilian application and aerospace agriculture development as its theme, aiming to discuss the far-reaching significance of aerospace agriculture for future agriculture and the effective driving effect of aerospace science and technology achievements on the social economy. As a brand-new attempt in modern agricultural breeding, the development direction of space breeding has become a focus of attention.
Cumulative promotion area of space breeding has reached 680,000 mu
“Our country has already bred 28 new vegetable varieties through space breeding technology and they have passed provincial-level appraisal, of which 15 varieties have passed recognition by provincial variety approval committees.” Yang Kai, a researcher at the Tianshui Space Breeding Base of the China Academy of Space Technology, revealed at the forum.
According to the introduction, space breeding, also called aerospace breeding, refers to placing crop seeds or buds on aerospace return vehicles, then traveling with them for a certain time in the cosmic space of microgravity, high vacuum, ultra-clean conditions, strong radiation and large temperature differences, causing genetic mutations in the seed genes; after returning to Earth, through 4~8 generations of ground cultivation, stable, high-yield, high-quality, early-maturing and disease-resistant improved crop varieties can be selected and bred——space seeds, thereby significantly improving crop yield, quality and taste. Our country began carrying vegetable seeds and other materials into space in 1987.
Yang Kai told reporters that our country's aerospace scientists and agricultural scientists using aerospace mutation technology for crop breeding is of very great significance for accelerating our country's breeding pace, improving breeding quality, and exploring a new breeding research field with Chinese characteristics. “As of the end of 2014, the cumulative promotion area of space breeding in 25 provinces (regions) across the country had reached 680,000 mu, realizing an agricultural added value of 3 billion yuan. In 2015, space-bred wheat, corn and soybeans will enter regional trials, and are expected to occupy at least 10% of the market share within three years.” he said.
⟦NL> Space breeding scope expected to expand
Mao Hongwei, vice president of the Beijing Shenfei Aerospace Application Technology Research Institute, told reporters that our country's aerospace agriculture has developed for 28 years and has achieved world-renowned achievements. Applying aerospace science and technology to modern agriculture can not only increase crop yield, but also increase the nutritional content of the fruit, and is more conducive to building a green and safe food industry.
“Superior varieties are the decisive factor in agricultural development, and play an irreplaceable role in increasing crop yield and improving crop quality.” Yang Kai said. According to him, the annual transaction volume of vegetable seeds in our country is about 600 million yuan, with imported seeds accounting for more than 60%, and there is an urgent need for seeds with domestic independent intellectual property rights to replace them.
According to relevant experts, many years of experiments have proved that seeds treated in space have advantages such as increased yield, disease resistance and lodging resistance; for example, space green peppers can increase yield by 25% and vitamin C content by 20%. Moreover, the space fruit and vegetable series is purely green, contains no various chemical substances, additives or hormones, is rich in nutrients, and tastes better.
Veteran expert Jiang Xingcun has deeper thinking about space breeding. He told reporters that our main direction for space breeding is grain and vegetables; in the future, breeding must consider not only yield and quality, but also more nutritional value and environmental value. Moreover, the scope of mutation breeding can also be expanded, for example, putting more effort into space breeding of Chinese herbal medicines and improving their quality, and through space breeding treatment, the yield of spices can be greatly increased. Mr. Jiang has also begun to consider exploration of treating seeds on the Moon. “Some units came to me and asked whether seeds could be launched to the Moon.” he said happily.
Bringing aerospace food into ordinary people's homes
“With space breeding as our scientific and technological support, we have always been committed to producing safe aerospace food, not only reducing the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, but also developing a series of green and healthy fruit and vegetable nutritional products. We want to rely on the Beijing Shenfei Aerospace Application Technology Research Institute to build the China Aerospace Ecological Health Industry Alliance.” Mao Hongwei said.
He believes that the civilian application and promotion of aerospace science and technology must be transformed into products; otherwise high technology will be shelved and remain far from ordinary people, so it is necessary to advocate deep processing of space-bred vegetables and pushing them to the market. “We must closely combine aerospace science and technology breeding with the building of agricultural parks and the deep processing of aerospace science and technology agricultural products, and integrate them with commercial channels, thereby creating a perfect industrial chain.” Mao Hongwei told reporters.
It is reported that in order to absorb more beneficial social forces and better and faster advance the civilian application process of aerospace science and technology, China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation has joined hands with Shanghai Liangjian Enterprise Management Consulting Service Co., Ltd. to jointly promote aerospace science and technology achievements. The Beijing Shenfei Aerospace Application Technology Research Institute authorized Shanghai Liangjian Enterprise Management Consulting Service Co., Ltd. as the Shanghai Branch of the Beijing Shenfei Aerospace Application Technology Research Institute, and at the same time appointed Dr. Zhang Biao, chief executive officer of Shanghai Liangjian Enterprise Management Consulting Service Co., Ltd., as dean of the Shanghai Branch of the Beijing Shenfei Aerospace Application Technology Research Institute.
“Today's civilian application of China's aerospace science and technology achievements and aerospace agriculture development provide a new way of thinking for solving food security issues, namely aerospace science and technology research and development taking the lead, enterprise promotion landing on the ground, and through research-enterprise cooperation and complementary advantages, rapidly advancing the civilian application of aerospace science and technology achievements in an industrialized model, creating an efficient and safe green food industry chain from source to terminal, bringing safer and more nutritious aerospace food into ordinary people's homes, and enabling aerospace agriculture to achieve both social value and commercial value.” Zhang Biao said.